Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1)

by Chris Strange

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s not my money,” he said as he set up another bet. He was the only one at this table now. The middle-aged woman he’d been sharing the game with had started bleeding chips and went off in search of more booze a few minutes ago.

  As the dealer dealt him his cards—a queen and an eight—his earpiece crackled back to life. Dom’s voice whispered in his ear.

  “We’re in. Floor plans say there’s another private elevator behind a staff door off the main corridor. It’s locked electronically, but Knox says he can override it. That should take us to the upper floors. Leone’s offices and the central command room. See if you can find the elevator. Then we’ll see about getting Knox up to you. Cough to confirm.”

  He cleared his throat as he signalled to stay. The dealer revealed his own hand: fifteen. He took another card. Eight of clubs.

  “Dealer busts,” he said. “Well done, sir.”

  Eddie pushed his chips across the table and stood. “Too much excitement for me. Colour me up.”

  The dealer nodded and traded in his chips for higher value ones. Eddie slipped them into his pocket, leaving one on the table. “Buy yourself a drink.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The dealer smiled as he took the chip.

  Brittany clung to his arm as he turned away from the table and returned to the entrance hall. He put his hand on hers.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the facilities. Can I meet you in the restaurant for the show?”

  “I’ll save us a table,” she said, releasing him and bouncing away. He headed towards the bathroom until she disappeared out of sight. Then he turned aside, nodded to a pair of elderly high rollers, and went searching for the staff door.

  He found it a few moments later. He hadn’t noticed it on the way in through the tiled hall. It was constructed to blend into the wall as just another panel; the only thing giving it away was the small gold handle. As he strolled past, he put a finger out and tested the handle. Locked. Hopefully the midget was as good as he claimed he was.

  He headed back towards the bathrooms and pushed open the door. Shining white surfaces gleamed at him from every direction. It was a far cry from the grimy little bathroom on the Solitude. He checked the toilets; both were empty.

  “Freckles, you there?” he whispered.

  “I don’t answer to that name,” Dom said in his ear.

  “You just did. I think I found the door. Locked, like you said. But it’s not well guarded. If the can opener can unlock it and get up here, I think we’ll be able to get through. Any idea what we’ll be facing upstairs?”

  “Shouldn’t be too many goons. Looks like security’s focused on the casino floor itself. But the records say Leone’s on site tonight, so expect at least a couple of bodyguards and whatever non-syndicate staff they need to keep this place running.”

  From outside the bathroom, the sound of a saxophone drifted in. He was missing the show. What a pity.

  “Piece of cake. Think you can get the midget up to me?”

  “We’re going to need that silver chip. Head back down and we’ll do something about the guards on the elevator.”

  “But I’m having so much fun blowing all your money,” he said. “Give me another ten minutes to spend the rest and I’ll—”

  A woman’s voice sang out over the call of the saxophone. Piano music tinkled in the background. The woman’s song tugged at him. There was something familiar about it.

  “Eddie,” Dom said. “Are you there?”

  “Hold on.” He took off the glasses and tucked them away in his pocket, cutting off Dom’s protestations. His heart hammered in his chest, fighting off the sedating powers of the Bluen and the alcohol. His mouth felt dry. He pushed open the bathroom door.

  The voice came down the hallway, clear and sharp like a knife. His legs carried him forward. The doors to the restaurant were open. It was dark over the tables, but lights illuminated the stage. The band played on, fading into the background.

  And in the centre of the stage, hands wrapped around the silver microphone pole, stood Cassandra Diaz.

  13

  “Eddie?” Dom hissed into her tab. “Eddie, talk to me, for the love of Man.”

  Knox raised his eyebrow at her from his seat alongside. “Trouble in paradise?”

  “Shut the hell up,” she said through gritted teeth. “Eddie. Eddie, come in.”

  The augment just sipped his drink and stared at the gamblers going about their business. He didn’t seem concerned that this whole sorry plan would go tits up if Eddie didn’t hold up his part. She bared her teeth at him.

  “Your neck’s on the line as well, you know.”

  “Sure,” Knox said. “But there’s no point getting worked up about it. Want me to get you a drink, sweetcheeks?”

  She ignored him and gave her tab a few sharp taps on the table. Piece of shit was older than the Solitude. She couldn’t even tell if she was still connected to Eddie’s tab.

  “Take it easy,” Knox said, his voice rising for the first time since they’d sat down. He snatched the tab out of her hands. “This is a relic of Pre-Fall tech, here. Manufactured by the Perna Corporation in the Ash system circa three hundred and fifty years ago. It’s delicate.”

  “It’s not working.” She tugged it out of his hands.

  “It’s working fine. It’s your partner who’s not—”

  He cut off with a sharp intake of breath as a man slid into the seat across the table from them.

  Dom hadn’t seen the man approach. She stopped abusing the tab to study him. He seemed…not familiar, exactly, but there was something about him that pulled at her gut.

  He was a big man, broad-shouldered and packed with muscle. He wore a thick jacket and a silk shirt that wouldn’t have suited him even if it hadn’t been out of fashion. A dark shadow of stubble coated his cheeks and chin. In his forties at least. Eyes hard like steel. The eyes of a man who had seen a lot and done more.

  The gears in her mind ground to a halt. She knew who this was. She slipped her hand into a pocket and gripped the revolver strapped to her thigh.

  Something metallic tickled her knee under the table. A gun barrel. The man shook his head.

  “Don’t try it, stalker.” His voice was almost guttural. “Hands above the table.”

  “No thank you, sir,” she said. “I think I’ll keep my hand right here.” She tightened her grip on her gun. “Roy Williams, I presume.”

  “In the flesh.”

  Knox was staring open-mouthed at Williams, his face rapidly turning grey. Williams nodded at the augment.

  “Knox,” he said.

  The augment said nothing.

  Dom glanced around without moving her head. She couldn’t see anyone who wasn’t a gambler or a staff member.

  “Don’t worry, stalker,” Williams said. “I didn’t bring backup.”

  “Then you’ve saved me a lot of trouble tracking you down, sir. If you’ll be so kind as to put your gun away, I’ll have you cuffed and handed over to the Feds in no time.”

  He didn’t smile. “I enjoy being free, and I intend to remain that way. You can consider this a warning.”

  A red-suited waitress smiled and slowed as she passed the table. “Can I get anyone a drink?”

  “We’re fine, thank you, ma’am,” Dom said without taking her eyes off Williams. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the waitress’s smile slip ever so slightly as she took in the cold tension surrounding the table.

  “Of course,” she said, already backing away. “Call if you need anything.”

  Dom waited until the woman had passed out of earshot before speaking again. “You’re staying quiet. You don’t want to bring attention to us. That tells me you’re not much liked around here. Otherwise you would’ve already told your old pal Feleti Leone about us. And we’d already be dead.”

  “Feleti Leone is no friend of mine,” Williams said. “Then again, he is no friend to stalkers either. If he recognised me, he would find ou
t who you were. And we’d both be buried in the basement.”

  “Then it seems we are at an impasse,” she said. “Seeing as I need you alive and you can’t afford to draw attention to yourself by killing me.”

  He nodded. “That was the intention behind this meeting.”

  “This warning, you mean.”

  Williams’ gun barrel scraped her knee. “I have no desire to kill you, stalker, but I have no particular concern about doing so. I’ve killed a lot of men and women in my pursuit of freedom. One more makes no difference.”

  “Then why so chatty?”

  “I want to make a deal.”

  “Usually when gentlemen make deals, they don’t aim guns at each other under the table.”

  “Then I suppose neither of us are gentlemen or gentlewomen.”

  Dom let a grim smile creep across her face. “I suppose that’s the case. Let’s hear it, then.”

  “There’s something I need to do on Temperance. A goal I must achieve before this station dies. I will not leave this station until I achieve that goal. If I fail, I have no reason to continue living.”

  “Something important to you.”

  He nodded. “The most important.”

  “A woman,” she guessed.

  “You look surprised.”

  “Not surprised. Amused. I’ve seen this before when I’ve chased fugitives. They break out of the joint and the first thing they think of is getting back to the piece of pussy they last fucked before they went away. They think it’s love. True love. Eternal. As if everything stands still on the outside when a man’s behind bars. As if that woman hasn’t moved on, hasn’t completely forgotten the son of a bitch she threw a pity fuck at. As if she hadn’t found out exactly who that man really was. Sound familiar?”

  “You can think what you like. My point is that there are things I have to do here and I can’t afford the time or attention necessary to remove you forcefully. So I’m taking another approach. I’m going to pay you to leave the station.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you can afford to buy me off?”

  “Twelve million.”

  “You’re worth seventeen.”

  “That includes hazard pay,” he said, leaning forward. “Leave now. An easy twelve million. I can have it delivered to your ship by morning.”

  She drummed her fingers on the table, meeting his cold eyes. The swirl of movement and laughter and panicked excitement hummed around them, but she blocked it all out. Knox had gone still and pale. He looked like he didn’t know whether to run or wet himself. He’d been scared of Bones and the other convicts, but he was terrified of Williams. She chewed it over.

  “No deal,” she said.

  A muscle tense in Williams’ cheek. “You’re a fool if you don’t agree to this. A dead fool.”

  “No. I’d be a fool to take your money. Assuming you actually have that much—which I don’t believe you do—it’s still not worth it. Sure, twelve million for getting on a ship and leaving? It’s a good deal. But then what? I have a contract on your head. A contract with the Federation. The same Federation who has me by the neck until I’ve paid back a debt to them. How many contracts do you think a stalker gets when they fail to capture their bounties? How long do you think a stalker lasts when they allow themselves to be bought off?”

  “You’re under the Federation’s thumb because you allow yourself to be,” Williams said. “There are plenty of places the Feds hold no power.”

  “I was a wanted woman once. I will not be again. I reject your offer, sir. You are a murderer and a fugitive. I will apprehend you and turn you over to be detained at the Federation’s pleasure. I will collect my reward and put it towards my debt. And one day, years from now, I will be a free woman. And you will be living out your days in an isolation cell in the void.”

  He stared at her for thirty seconds, eyes cold. She stared right back.

  “Very well,” he said. “When you’re lying on the ground with my bullet in your chest and the last of your lifeblood leaking out, I hope you remember this conversation.”

  He stood, quietly slipping his gun into his waistband and pulling his jacket out to cover it. He turned his back and started to walk away. Dom didn’t release her own gun.

  “I can’t allow you to leave here, Mr Williams,” she said. “Don’t move.”

  He paused and glanced back. “You can’t afford to waste time apprehending me now.”

  “I have all the time in the world.” She rose, her hand still in her pocket, grasping her revolver. “You have to leave this casino sometime. And when we’re outside, away from Leone’s eyes, you’re mine.”

  He kept his back to her. “No. You have a clock, stalker. Leone’s men are watching your partner. Mr Gould, isn’t it?”

  Her gut turned cold.

  “He’s upstairs in the high roller lounge,” Williams said. “Leone knows he’s a stalker. Only he thinks the two of you are after him. In minutes he will be captured.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Williams half-turned and gave her a hard stare. “They will take him to an unused section on the port side of the fourteenth floor. He will be interrogated. Harshly. He will be asked about you. They will come for you next. You do not have much time, stalker. You can’t do both. You can’t rescue Gould and apprehend me at the same time. If you wish to save your friend, you have no choice but to let me walk out of here.”

  Her lips peeled back. “You son of a bitch. You set us up.”

  “And you declined my deal. Farewell, stalker. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other soon.”

  He turned and started walking away. Dom watched him go, grinding her teeth together. She had every legal right to capture Williams right here. But in this place, in Leone’s den, she doubted the law counted for much. Williams was right. Men like Leone didn’t take kindly to stalkers disturbing the peace in their businesses.

  If she could just get Williams outside, get him away from all these prying eyes, she could disarm him and cuff him. It would only take a few minutes. He was lying about Eddie. It was all a bluff. It had to be.

  Williams’ back grew smaller. Then he disappeared behind a crowd of gamblers at a craps table. He was gone.

  “Shit.” Dom whirled around. Knox was downing the last of his drink, sweat pouring from his cheeks. “Anything on the security system?”

  The augment blinked and brought up his tab. “Uh, not yet. Not that I can see.”

  Dom pushed back her hat and rubbed her forehead. It was a lie. She took a step after Williams.

  “Wait,” Knox said. “I just found something. An alert.” He turned the tab towards her. A pixellated vid feed image of Eddie half-hidden in darkness. He was staring at something off-screen. “They’re preparing to apprehend him.”

  Shit. Shit. Damn it, Eddie. She cast one more glance towards the craps table where she’d last seen Williams. Forget it. He’s long gone. She finally released her gun.

  “Stay here,” she said, turning towards the exit. “Wait for my instructions.”

  “Hey, where are you going?” Knox said.

  “I’m going to need a bigger gun.”

  14

  A black gown clung to Cassandra, glittering softly in the light. She’d dyed her hair a deep brown. Heavy makeup bordered her eyes; a stripe of black across her face. But it was her. It was undoubtedly her.

  Eddie stopped in the doorway, letting the shadow fall over him. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He’d never heard her sing before; he didn’t even know she could. But her song reverberated in the depths of his chest, making it hard to breathe. He wasn’t listening to the words. All he could hear was the sadness in her voice, in her song.

  He didn’t know how long he stood there, trance-like, letting her music wash over him. One song stopped and the next started. Gamblers and escorts were seated throughout the restaurant, their faces hidden in the shadow, but for him it could have been just Cassandra and himself alone in this cavernous room,
just the two of them and her sad song. The barman approached him, offering him a glass of wine on a silver platter. But Eddie just waved him away with a twitch of his hand.

  And then it was over. The song stopped and no other song began to replace it. The last notes died in his chest. With her eyes downcast, Cassandra turned away and disappeared out of the spotlight, vanishing behind the curtain at the side of the stage.

  The spell was broken. Eddie jerked alive again. The audience gave a smattering of polite applause as the lights rose and the mumbling sound of conversation filled the silence. He saw Brittany looking at him from a table off to the side, a confused look on her face. Probably wondering why he was just standing there, why he hadn’t sat down. He didn’t give a shit what she thought.

  First the gentlemen’s club, now Cassandra was singing here. Why? It didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t a stripper and she wasn’t a musician. She was a fighter, a thief, a leader.

  But she was alive. He hadn’t believed it when Victoria Palmer said she was dead, not truly. He’d been right. She was still alive. She was alive, and she was here. He’d been close enough to call to her. She was here, in this building.

  He had to get to her.

  All thought of Dom and Roy Williams and the private elevator fled his mind, pushed aside by that one thought, focused like an anti-ship beam. Find Cassandra.

  He took a few breaths to cool himself down, then went back to the bar and took a seat in front of the barman.

  “You’ve removed your glasses, sir,” the barman said.

  “They were straining my eyes. I’ll take a lager. And, I know this might be an unusual request, but I was taken by that woman’s singing. Could you send a bottle of champagne to her dressing room? You can add it to my tab.”

  The barman’s forehead creased slightly. “I suppose that would be all right, sir.”

  “Fantastic. Do you happen to know her name?”

  The barman set the tall glass of beer down in front of him. “Miss Lilian Mayweather, sir. But I’m afraid I don’t know much more about her. She only began singing here recently.”